Priya Makes Pav Bhaji

People on the internet love left-handed people.

Shout out to all my lefties.

They couldn't get Barack Obama on From the Test Kitchen,

so they settled for Priya.

[upbeat music]

We are making pav bhaji.

Pav is sort of a dinner roll, bhaji is a vegetable gravy.

Think of this like a vegetarian sloppy Joe.

And what I like about this dish

is that it's an amazing sort of party trick

that's really easy to put together

and looks amazing for entertaining.

If you can boil vegetables, you can make pav bhaji.

I've got three cups of water, cauliflower, peas.

I always use frozen because I don't really like chopping,

and in this dish, because you're kind of stewing

everything together, frozen versus fresh,

it doesn't really make a difference.

I'm gonna take this over to the stove

and bring these to a boil.

Peas.

Cauliflower.

You're just making a little jacuzzi for the vegetables here.

And then I'm just gonna cover it

and wait for this to come to a boil,

which should be really soon.

And then we're just gonna simmer it for seven to 10 minutes

until everything kinda becomes soft and mushy.

My family loves our microwave.

I know there's this thing in cooking

where you're not supposed to use the microwave,

but we do potatoes in the microwave.

We make our rice in the microwave.

We make quinoa in the microwave.

We love our microwave.

A really easy way to boil potatoes

is you prick them with a fork three or four times,

microwave 'em for five minutes on one side,

flip 'em, microwave 'em for five minutes

on the other side on high.

It's really easy and saves you an extra pot.

I think that boiled potatoes are one

of the most underrated elements in cooking.

If you can boil a potato, you can do anything.

If you can boil a potato, you have the base for a soup.

You can put them in a grain bowl

to add a little bit more heft.

You can build a hearty salad.

All right, cool.

So I'm gonna discard all that potato skin.

And then we're just gonna mash them.

[grunting]

Sorry.

Just haven't worked out my upper body in a while. [laughs]

Oh my god, he was so excited.

On all of his group chats with his college friends,

he sort of became a celebrity.

He also didn't realize that Bon Appetit videos

get views at all, so when I had like 500 views

he's like you're viral, 500 views! [laughs]

We're gonna chop the tomatoes.

I like using a serrated knife

'cause I feel like it just kinda

punctures the tomato a little bit less.

Also when I worked in kitchens,

I almost got thrown out of a kitchen

for discarding this thing without chopping the ends.

'Cause there's valuable tomato flesh there.

I learned from my friend Judy

that it's easier to chop tomatoes

if you cut them into thirds,

'cause it makes them into more manageable pieces.

Judy Kim, food stylist.

Hey, Judy.

All right, over to the cauliflower and peas.

So we're just basically looking

for the cauliflower to be a little bit mashable.

You don't want it to be really, really sad and soggy,

but you do want it to be soft.

I'm just gonna eat this piece of cauliflower if that's okay.

Oh, oops.

Oh, [bleeps].

I mean oops. [man laughs]

Drain these and then just throw 'em back into the pot.

So we've got our drained cauliflower and peas.

We're just gonna mash it a little bit.

Don't go crazy here.

You just wanna mash it so it'll incorporate with the sauce.

Not a monster mash, a mini mash.

Now we're gonna chop our serrano chile.

I like these chiles because they're fruity.

They've got a nice kick to them.

Which one is this burner?

This one?

Oh, nope.

We're gonna do medium-high heat,

and we're gonna heat up our oil.

Once that starts to shimmer a little bit,

which it looks like it's doing pretty quickly

'cause these burners are hot,

we're gonna swirl in our turmeric.

I guess this'll work.

All right.

Once that's sort of incorporated into the oil,

we're going to add the ground coriander.

I like doing freshly ground.

I think it's a little bit more aromatic.

And then we're going to add a quarter teaspoon

of red chili powder, more or less depending on your tastes.

And then we're gonna throw in out tomaters

and mix all that together.

And so you're basically gonna cook this

until it comes down into a chunky tomato sauce.

We're gonna turn the heat down to low

and then we're gonna add two tablespoons

of water and our chiles.

Make sure you're getting the spiced bits off the bottom,

which is why we're sort of de-glazing the pan with water.

Cool.

This is good.

So now we're gonna bring everything together.

Cauliflower and peas,

and then we're gonna throw the potatoes in.

Boom.

One and a half teaspoons of salt,

which I'm just gonna eyeball here.

We'll taste it a little bit later.

And then we're gonna moisten everything up

with another quarter cup of water.

Depending on how dry your potatoes are

you might wanna add more.

There we go.

And so I'm gonna put the heat back up to medium-low now.

You're gonna wanna just cook this for like four minutes.

The Bhaji is great because it's so complex.

You're getting the aromatics from the coriander,

the double dose of spiciness from

the red chili powder and the green chiles.

Hmm.

I think it needs a little bit more salt,

but that's just a personal preference thing.

Fold in some cilantro.

This'll kinda brighten things up.

Whoo, that was spicy.

Perfect!

[grunts] Oh my god.

Ow, my arms are a lot weaker than I thought they were.

Let's talk about buns.

Today we're talking about Martin's Potato Rolls,

my favorite bun of all time.

Usually people use this bread call pav,

which is like a yeasted,

really simple dinner roll style bread.

So if you don't have Martin's Potato Rolls,

you can use dinner rolls.

You can use any old hamburger bun.

So buttering-wise, you know, I'd say go big.

All right, we're almost done with our buttered buns.

That sounds a little, sounds inappropriate somehow.

Buttered buns?

Right?

Doesn't that conjure up strange images for you guys?

No? [people murmuring]

No one?

Okay.

You're just putting your pan on high heat,

and you're just gonna toast these for a minute

until they're golden brown.

You know how to do this.

You're just toasting buns.

I don't need to tell you guys.

Boom!

Look at these not-burnt buns.

These are beautiful!

You can pile garbage on top of that bun

and it's going to taste delicious.

Tommy, do you wanna assemble?

Yeah, come on.

Pile some on top of the buns like this.

It's okay if it spills. Okay.

Yeah, perfect.

And then what we're gonna do is just kinda

make it rain with these onions.

These are beautifully sliced onions.

Can I try this? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Do not fear raw onions.

If there's one takeaway from this video,

raw onions are amazing.

They add freshness.

They add bite.

Just go crazy! You got everything now?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm good.

Cool. Thanks, Tommy. [laughs]

All right.

So you've blizzarded with onions.

Now you're gonna finish with lime juice.

And this sort of depends on how limey you want things.

I like it pretty limey, so I'm gonna be generous.

And you can let your party guests do this.

Lime, lime.

And let's use this last lime, 'cause why not?

I love lime.

My mom's thing, besides rolling our your lime,

you should do that.

These don't need any more lime,

so I'm just gonna, is once you squeeze

all the juice out of the lime,

the way to get more juice is to go like that.

See what I'm doing?

Like squeeze and then scrape.

The old squeeze-and-scrape as I'm now calling it.

All right, that's it.

Can I eat it now? Yes.

[laughs]

Oh yeah, these have got some heft to them.

Oh yeah.

It's really good.

It just is such a harmony of things that I love.

Butter, buns, spicy vegetable goodness.

We've got the freshness from the lime and the onion.

It's just like a study in balance.

This is truly a dish that is so hard to mess up.

You will never end up with a kitchen disaster.

You have my word.

Make this at a party and you can spend

all your time hanging out with your guests,

liquoring them up.

It's gonna be great.

Make pav bhaji.

[laughs]

[Man] Right, right.

Camera cuts, sound cuts.

Brad, do you know what this tool is?

Where did this come from?

Oh, the Multiglass 4000?

Exoglass 300.

Oh, is that what you're using?

Yes.

What, is it made of fiberglass?

I have no idea.

Looks like plastic to me.

Yeah, it looks like plastic but it says Exoglass.

That John Denver's full of shit. [laughs]